Thursday, November 08, 2007

Beijing

Next week I am going to Beijing. I have previously visited China but on this occasion I will see the Great Wall of China. This large edifice is said by some to be the second largest engineering construct on the planet Earth, and the second thing that would be seen from outer space coming towards earth. The largest is of course said to be "the fence", or a 2 metre high wire netting fence completed in the 1950s which goes 5614 km across Australia. (Time magazine places the great wall of China as 1684 miles but it could be far longer). Different as they are, these two barriers have many things in common: for example the indomitable spirit of the human race in combating forces of corruption and exploitation (in the case of China, these problems were seen as cultural challenges and in the case of Australia, as leading to the necessity of a form of ecological protection against rabbits introduced by the British, and other such unwanted but harmless creatures).

IMO: Many things change but remain the same, but continually there are new tests to try us - global warming in particular.